Reference library
The architecture of verse.
A working taxonomy of 38 poetic forms — from the strict 14-line sonnet to the breath-driven landscape of free verse. Each entry has a definition, a place in tradition, and famous examples drawn from the public-domain corpus.
The writer's workbench
Learn the form here. Write it yourself. Let the bench check your lines.
Poem Checker
Line-by-line feedback on the draft you wrote — grammar, rhyme strength, weak lines, and meter notes. The rewrite stays yours.
Syllable Counter
Per-word counts for any line — instant, unlimited.
Iambic Pentameter Checker
Every line marked for stress against da-DUM × 5.
Poetry Prompts
Sixty original prompts written by editors — image, memory, persona, and form challenges. A door, not a topic.
Rhyme Scheme Finder
Your end rhymes lettered phonetically, slant rhymes counted.
Sonnet Checker
Fourteen lines, pentameter, scheme, and the volta.
Haiku Checker
5-7-5 verified, with kigo and kireji notes.
Limerick Checker
AABBA and the long-long-short-short-long shape.
Complete typology
The full registry.
38 structural frameworks, grouped by their governing constraints. Click any form for its definition, history, and famous examples.
01
Strict closed forms
Highly constrained architectures defined by explicit rules — meter, rhyme scheme, syllable count, line repetition. The rule-bound canon.
Ballade
28 lines — three octaves and an envoi, every stanza closing on the same refrain.
Cinquain
Five lines, 2-4-6-8-2 syllables. Adelaide Crapsey's compression.
Epigram
Two to four lines built to land a sting. Brevity as a weapon.
Ghazal
Autonomous couplets with a recurring refrain in the second line.
Haiku
Three lines, 5-7-5 syllables, traditionally anchored by a kigo.
Limerick
Five lines, AABBA, anapestic — built for the punchline.
Ode
A formal lyric of address — Pindaric, Horatian, or irregular.
Pantoum
Interlocking quatrains; lines 2 and 4 become 1 and 3 of the next stanza.
Renga
Collaborative linked verse — alternating 5-7-5 and 7-7 stanzas passed between poets.
Rondeau
15 lines on two rhymes; the opening phrase returns as a refrain.
Sestina
39 lines, no rhyme — six end-words rotate through a strict pattern.
Sonnet
14 lines, iambic pentameter, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG (Shakespearean).
Tanka
Five lines, 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. The haiku's longer ancestor.
Triolet
Eight lines, two rhymes — line one returns at lines four and seven.
Villanelle
19 lines, two refrains rotating across 5 tercets and a quatrain.
02
Modern & open frameworks
Forms built on organic rhythm, thematic flow, or the deliberate subversion of traditional architecture. Post-Whitman flexibility.
Blank Verse
Strict iambic pentameter, but unrhymed. Shakespeare's plays in this.
Ekphrastic Poem
A poem that stares at a work of visual art until it speaks.
Found Poem
Lifted from existing text — menus, headlines, letters — and re-lineated as verse.
Free Verse
No prescribed meter or rhyme. Cadence and image carry the weight.
Lyric Poem
First-person expression of pure emotion or interiority.
Prose Poem
Poetic language formatted in standard prose paragraphs.
Slam Poetry
Designed for vocal performance — page-versus-stage by way of stage.
03
Traditional storytelling
Forms historically engineered to relay plot, history, lament, or encoded messages. Narrative work that predates the printing press.
Each form's definition starts with the relevant Wikipedia article — the closest thing we have to a consensus reference for English-language poetics. We summarize it, humanize the prose, and check the result against the original.
The famous-poem examples on every form's deep page come from our public-domain corpus, sourced from Project Gutenberg and Wikidata. Nothing under copyright; nothing scraped without provenance.
- Forms indexed
- 38
- Source corpus
- Public domain
Sister library
Visit the literary devices index.
Forms are the architecture; devices are the carpentry — alliteration, enjambment, metaphor, and the rest of the line-level toolkit.
Inquiries
What's the difference between a form and a device?
A form dictates the whole-poem architecture — line count, rhyme scheme, repeating refrains. A device (alliteration, enjambment, metaphor) is a line-level move applied inside the form. You write devices into a form.
How were these forms chosen?
We picked the forms most consistently named in English-language literary references — the canon, the non-English forms (haiku, ghazal, pantoum, tanka, renga) that have entered English practice, and the stanzaic building blocks (couplet, sestet, octave, terza rima) that larger forms are made of. We exclude one-off contemporary inventions until they show staying power.
Why don't you have [X form]?
If a form is well-attested in literary scholarship and we don't have it yet, we probably will. The library grows as we add public-domain examples that ground the entry.
Can Storgy write a poem in one of these forms for me?
No — by design. Storgy's AI reads, teaches, and gives feedback; it never writes the poem for you. Each entry here teaches the form's rules, the Poetry Prompts page offers sixty hand-written starting points, and the free checkers (sonnet, haiku, limerick, iambic pentameter) verify the lines you write yourself.